Archive

AppleInsider reports that according to McAfee Threat report – Second Quarter 2011, Apple’s iOS has remained unaffected by malware in the second quarter of this year, while Google’s Android has seen an increase of 76% in the number of malware threats compared to the first quarter.

In the first quarter, Android was the third most targeted mobile platform and has now jumped to the top position in this quarter, followed by J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Macro Edition).

Here’s a snippet from the report about malware affecting mobile operating systems:

One significant change in the first quarter of 2011 was Androidâ€™s becoming the third-most targeted platform for mobile malware. This quarter the count of new Android-specific malware moved to number one, with J2ME (Java Micro Edition), coming in second while suffering only a third as many malware.

This increase in threats to such a popular platform should make us evaluate our behavior on mobile devices and the security industryâ€™s preparedness to combat this growth.

We also saw an increase in for-profit mobile malware, including simple SMS-sending Trojans and complex Trojans that use exploits to compromise smartphones.

As you can see in the graph below,Â despite the steady growth in mobile malware threats over the last two years, Apple’s iOS has remained unaffected, which is quite impressive:

The report however warns that fake or rogue anti-virus malware likeÂ MacDefender that have affected the Mac, could make its way to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Interestingly, HP’s webOS was the other mobile operating system that was unaffected by malwares, although the future of webOS remains uncertain afterÂ HP announced last week that it is killing webOS based devices.

You can read the entire McAfee Threat report, Second Quarter 2011 by following this link.